Great Country Academician

Magic City, Institute of Nuclear Research, Academy of Sciences.

Xu Chuan found an office, took eight selected researchers, and explained to them the 'atomic cycle' theory and the basis for the development of new anti-radiation materials, as well as some points that should be paid attention to in the preliminary experiments.

".For radiation-resistant materials, the ionization effect carried by strong nuclear radiation itself is the biggest problem. It can destroy the grain boundaries, molecular structures, neutral atoms, etc. of materials, thereby causing embrittlement, accelerating creep, phase Instability, accelerated corrosion and other consequences."

"The atomic cycle technology is a theory based on ionizing radiation and ionizing effects."

"This theory will reduce the difficulty of forming grain boundaries by adding some compounds to improve the charge distribution of the space charge layer, control the phase morphology of the grain boundary, and form a grain boundary channel that is conducive to ion migration on the premise of ensuring the largest grain size of the radiation-resistant material. In order to ensure that the material can self-restore its structure after being ionized by nuclear radiation, it has a longer radiation resistance time"

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Although these things have been written in great detail in previous papers, he still chose to go through them again for these researchers, and by the way, solve some of their doubts.

On the one hand, it is to cultivate talents, and on the other hand, it is to speed up the progress of subsequent experiments.

In front of the projection screen, Xu Chuan continued to explain the key details of the 'atomic cycle' theory. In the conference room, nine researchers including Han Jin listened carefully.

Since Jing Kangle and Sun Heng were 'fired', the enthusiasm of the entire small team has increased a lot again.

It became clear to everyone in an instant that this young-looking big cow has done every word he said.

He said that there is a test, and the test really comes. He said that the test determines whether they can join the team, and those who fail the test do not really come in even if they pass the interview.

In fact, in the workplace, it is the most basic requirement to do one's own thing conscientiously, but many people are unable to do it now.

Just like acting in the entertainment industry, memorizing lines and memorizing lines can be said to be the most basic requirement, but some young people who have no acting skills and don't want to work hard, relying on their wealth and nao fans, they started 123456789

This is extremely unhealthy for the entire environment.

Xu Chuan has no ability to change the overall environment, but he has the ability to ensure that his small group is in a healthy state.

"Professor, I have a question."

In the conference room, a scientific researcher raised his right hand cautiously and nervously.

Xu Chuan followed the voice and looked over. The one who raised his hand was a younger-looking researcher.

He nodded and motioned for the other party to ask questions: "Please tell me."

The researcher stood up nervously, took two deep breaths to suppress the tension in his heart, and then asked.

"Professor, you mentioned before using the grain boundary effect of materials to resist nuclear radiation, but the grain boundary effect is exclusive to ceramic materials. If this is the case, other subsequent materials, including some soft anti-materials, may not be able to have this advantage. of."

Xu Chuan smiled and said, "I'm glad you can have your own thinking and put it forward."

"The grain boundary effect is indeed an exclusive property of ceramic materials, but it is not impossible to apply to other materials."

"We all know that combat materials will be bombarded by high-energy particles, such as neutrons and gamma particles, in service environments, resulting in a large number of off-site damage, including vacancies and self-interstitial atoms."

"These dislocation defects and the corresponding clusters degrade or even fail the material performance, restricting the stability of the material."

"Previous multi-scale simulations often only focused on basic atomic processes, such as diffusion, segregation, and recombination, when revealing the microscopic mechanism of the interaction between defects and interfaces."

"However, under actual service conditions, countermeasure materials often need to withstand a certain dose of cumulative radiation"

While explaining, Xu Chuan wrote a line on the blackboard in the meeting room.

[Cumulative dislocation damage of nanomaterials--interstitial loading of grain boundaries and irradiation effect of grain boundaries. 】

After finishing writing, he turned his head and looked at the researcher who asked the question with a smile, and continued: "Traditional countermeasure materials, when exposed to high-energy nuclear radiation, will indeed have various defects caused by various ionizing radiation."

"But when we get the structure of the material down to the nanoscale, it makes all the difference."

"I have seen and studied this in Princeton. A lot of research materials and experimental data show that nanostructure materials, especially nanocrystalline materials, have good radiation resistance."

"This is due to the fact that a large number of grain boundaries in such materials can trap radiation defects and promote their recombination, thereby reducing the accumulation of radiation damage in the material matrix."

"For example, in iron metal, when the grain boundary is reorganized through nanotechnology, the iron grain boundary has the ability to effectively capture vacancies and self-interstitial atoms and promote their recombination under conditions of higher irradiation temperature or lower dose rate. , reduce the accumulation of radiation defects inside the grains, so as to achieve the ability to repair radiation damage."

"Furthermore, when the radiated interstitials of the iron grain boundaries accumulate to a certain concentration, some of the interstitials disappear during the grain boundary relaxation process, accompanied by the formation of new grain boundary structural phases. As the irradiation dose increases, the interstices continue to accumulate, accompanied by With the local movement of grain boundaries, it gradually returns to a near-initial state."

"What this means, I think you should all know."

As he said that, Xu Chuan turned his gaze to the researcher who was still standing, and looked at him with a smile.

"This means that this resistant material will not only undergo grain boundary corrosion when exposed to nuclear radiation, but also achieve grain boundary repair!"

The standing researcher blurted out without thinking, with a look of disbelief.

Hearing this sentence, other researchers in the conference room, including the person in charge, Han Jin, all had disbelief, confusion, doubts and other emotions on their faces.

Can nuclear radiation repair the grain boundaries of materials?

What are you kidding?

The strong ionization characteristic carried by nuclear radiation itself can destroy the molecular atomic structure of almost all materials, resulting in pores in the grain boundary of the material, loss of atoms and defects.

Even containers made of high-density and extremely stable metals such as lead will gradually have various problems when exposed to nuclear radiation for a long time.

This can be said to be a rule.

If it weren't for this, human beings would not be able to find a perfect way to deal with nuclear waste.

Nuclear radiation is inherently destructive, allowing it to corrode all materials.

But now Xu Chuan told them that in addition to being destructive, nuclear radiation is also restorative.

It has to be said that this is an extremely shocking piece of news. For a short while, everyone fell into surprise and confusion.

Looking at the researchers in the conference room, Xu Chuan smiled.

In his previous life, he did the experiment of "Nuclear Beta Radiation Energy Concentration and Converting Electric Energy Mechanism" at a certain atomic energy testing facility in California, the first time he came to this conclusion, he couldn't believe it.

However, after repeated verification of this conclusion many times later, and after confirming that there is no problem, it was finally determined that nanomaterials manufactured by special means have more advantages than conventional materials in fighting nuclear radiation.

And it was this unexpected discovery that finally allowed him to perfect the "atomic cycle" technology, develop different countermeasure materials, and find a technology that can reuse waste nuclear materials.

It can be said that the accumulative dislocation damage of nanomaterials——grain boundary gap loading and grain boundary irradiation effects—is the real core of the technology of "nuclear energy beta radiation energy accumulation and conversion mechanism".

Originally, he planned to let other researchers discover it by himself during the material experiment, but he didn't expect that someone would pay attention to this aspect now.

This made him very interested, and he also wrote down the name of the researcher who asked the question in his heart, and planned to focus on training in the future.

For this researcher, that was opportunity.

Perhaps other people in this group of eight people have also noticed this problem.

But in many cases, opportunities are also to be won by yourself.

Burying the problem in the bottom of my heart has no other value except to trouble myself.

But by bringing it up, sometimes not only can you get an answer, but you can also gain appreciation.

The last day of September passed with Xu Chuan's explanation.

During the Golden Week in October, Xu Chuan gave the researchers of the nuclear energy research and development team a holiday. On the one hand, it was the National Day, and the regular holiday would also be a holiday. On the other hand, he let them digest the various knowledge he explained the previous two days.

As for himself, he returned to Jinling.

The nuclear energy research and development team is on holiday, but the Chuanhai Materials Laboratory is not on holiday, and they are working overtime during the Golden Week of the 11th National Day.

No way, his time is tight.

Multi-line work is doomed that he has little time to rest.

On the basis of the well-established theory + the "prophet" Xu Chuan, the research and development of lithium battery electrolyte materials and artificial SEI films has entered the formal stage.

After Xu Chuan collected the work content of these days and looked at it, he also joined the experiment.

What he joined was the research and development of artificial SEI thin films.

Compared with the electrolyte, the artificial SEI film is the key point.

It was developed to solve the largest and most difficult problem of 'lithium dendrites' in lithium batteries.

In the lithium battery industry, lithium dendrites are the biggest problem and the fundamental problem affecting the safety, stability, and electromagnetic capacity of lithium-ion batteries.

It is a dendritic metal lithium formed when lithium ions are reduced during charging of a lithium battery, and generally appears on the negative electrode of the battery.

The growth of lithium dendrites can lead to instability of the electrode-electrolyte interface during cycling in lithium-ion batteries, and damage the resulting solid electrolyte interface (SEI) film. It can even pierce the diaphragm and cause a short circuit inside the lithium-ion battery, causing the thermal runaway of the battery to cause a combustion explosion.

Moreover, the lithium dendrites will continuously consume the electrolyte during the growth process and lead to the irreversible deposition of metallic lithium, forming dead lithium and resulting in low Coulombic efficiency.

In reality, the battery is used for a long time, and the power will gradually decrease.

This is especially evident on mobile phones.

A newly bought cell phone battery can support one day of operation, but after a year or two, the battery can only support half a day of operation or even less.

The artificial SEI film is one of the methods to solve the lithium dendrite problem.

It can prevent lithium ions from accumulating in the negative electrode, so that it cannot form lithium dendrites, thereby solving this problem.

In this way, the negative electrode material of lithium batteries can be replaced with lithium metal with higher capacity.

Not to mention how many times the battery capacity of the lithium battery can be increased after the lithium dendrite is solved, even if it is only doubled, it can make the whole world crazy.

If the energy density of the current battery is doubled, it means that the battery life of various electrical appliances will be doubled without changing the shape, increasing the load, or sacrificing comfort.

The standby time of mobile phones and computers is doubled, and the mileage of electric vehicles is doubled.

With such a tempting prospect, mobile phone suppliers and electric vehicle manufacturers will be completely crazy.

As for the electrolyte, that is reserved by Xu Chuan for the next generation of lithium batteries.

After solving the lithium dendrite problem, the current lithium-ion batteries on the market can be upgraded to lithium metal batteries, and after lithium metal batteries, there are lithium-sulfur batteries and lithium-air batteries with higher energy densities.

The continuous innovation from generation to generation is enough for him to completely control the huge market of lithium batteries.

On National Day, Xu Chuan helped Yu Zhen, who is in charge of the research and development of artificial SEI thin film materials, to improve the research and development progress in the Chuanhai Laboratory. He was busy until ninety o'clock every night.

Of course, there must be overtime pay for overtime work. He is not the kind of black-hearted capitalist who can't do overtime for free.

In addition to the five times the overtime salary of 3+2, Xu Chuan also promised compensatory holidays.

As long as the relevant research and development projects are completed, the corresponding personnel can take paid leave and make up as many days of overtime as they have worked.

With such benefits, all the researchers in the laboratory are as if they have been beaten with chicken blood, and they can survive better than Xu Chuan.

However, under such circumstances, whether it is the research and development of electrolyte materials or the research and development of artificial SEI thin film materials, the progress is quite fast.

Based on a detailed theoretical basis, under the leadership of Xu Chuan, the Chuanhai Materials Research Institute has produced small batches of synthetic materials required for the first generation of artificial SEI films.

In the middle of the night, in the laboratory of Chuanhai Materials Research Institute, Xu Chuan was busy with the last work in his hands. After sorting out the experimental equipment, he took off his mask and goggles, and said to other busy people in the room:

"Today's work is here first. Let's go back and rest early. Tomorrow we will officially start the synthesis of artificial SEI films."

Before he finished speaking, the door of the laboratory was hastily pushed open.

Xu Chuan turned his head to look, and he was a little surprised by the people who came in. The people who came were Liu Gaojun, the principal of Nanjing University, and his mentor Chen Zhengping.

When they saw Xu Chuan, their eyes lit up, and they walked over quickly, panting, and said in unison: "You can't get through the phone because you're not asleep!"

Seeing the two people rushing in, Xu Chuan looked at them suspiciously, and asked, "I'm doing an experiment here, and the mobile phone is in blocking mode, so I didn't pay much attention to it. What's wrong? What happened? "

Hearing this answer, Chen Zhengping excitedly said: "Do you know if you won the award! The winning phone calls are all coming to the school!"

On the side, Liu Gaojun quickly added: "Nobel Prize!"